Joan of Arc Biography Part 10

By Jules Michelet The Maid of Orleans

But the greatest peril for the saint
was from her own sanctity,- from the
respect and adoration of the people.
At Lagny, she was besought to restore
a child to life. The count d'Armagnac wrote, begging her to decide
which of the two popes was to be fol
lowed. According to the reply she is
said to have given (falsified, perhaps),
she promised to deliver her decision
at the close of the war, confiding in
her internal voices to enable her to
pass judgment on the very head of
authority.

And yet there was no pride in her.
She never gave herself out for a saint :
often, she confessed that she knew not .
the future. The evening before a battle she was asked whether the king
would conquer, and replied that she
knew not. At Bourges, when the
women prayed her to touch crosses
and chaplets, she began laughing, and
said to dame Marguerite, at whose
house she was staying, " Touch them
yourself, they will be just as good."

The singular originality of this girl
was, as wo have said, good sense in
the midst of exaltation ; and this, as
we shall see, was what rendered her
judges implacable. The pedants, the
reasoners who hated her as an inspired
being, were so much the more cruel to
her from the impossibility of despising
her as a mad woman, and from the fre
quency with which her loftier reason
silenced their arguments.

It was not difficult to foresee her
fate. She mistrusted it herself. From
the outset she had said - " Employ me,
I shall last but the year, or little
longer." Often, addressing her chap
lain, brother Pasquerel, she repeated,
'' If I must die soon, tell the king, our
lord, from me, to found chapels for the
ofiFering up of prayers for the salva
tion of such as have died in defence of
the kingdom."

Her parents asking her, when they
saw her again at Bheims, whether she
had no fear of any thing, her answer
was, " Nothing, except treason."

Often, on the approach of evening,
if there happened to be any church
near the place where the army en
camped, and particularly, if it be
longed to the Mendicant orders, she
gladly repaired to it, and would join
the children who were being prepared
to receive the sacrament. According
to an ancient chronicle, the very day
on which she was fated to be made
prisoner, she communicated in the
church of St. Jacques, CompiSgne,
where, leaning, sadly against a pillar,
she said to the good people and chil
dren who crowded the church - "My
good friends and my dear children, I
tell you of a surety, there is a man
who has sold me ; I am betrayed, and
shall soon be given up to death. Pray
to God for me, I beseech you ; for I
shall no longer be able to serve my
king or the noble realm of France."

The probability is, that the Pucelle
was bargained for and bought, even as
Soissons had just been bought. At so
critical a moment, and when their
young king was landing on French
ground, the English would be ready
to give any sum for her. But the
Burgundians longed to have her in
their grasp, and they succeeded: it
was to the interest not of the duke
only and of the Burgnndian party in
general, but it was, besides, the direct
interest of John of Ligny, who eagerly
bought the prisoner.

For the Pucelle to fall into the hands
of a noble lord of the house of Lux
embourg, of a vassal of the chivalrous
Duke of Burgundy, of the good duke,
as he was called, was a hard trial for
the chivalry of the day. A prisoner
of war, a girl, so young a girl, and,
above all, a maid, what had she to fear
amidst loyal knights? Chivalry was
in every one's mouth as the protec
tion of afflicted dames and damsels.
Marshal Boucicaut had just founded
an order which had no other object.
Besides, the worship of the Virgin,
constantly extending in the middle
age, having become the dominant
religion, it seemed as if virginity
must be an inviolable safeguard.

To explain what is to follow, we
must point out the singular want qf
harmony which then existed between
ideas and morals, and, however shock
ing the contrast, bring face to face
with the too sublime ideal, with the
Imitation, with the Pucelle, the low
realities of the time; we must (be
seeching pardon of the chaste girl
who forms the subject of this narra
tive) fathom the depths of this world
of covetousness and of concupiscence.
Without seeing it as it existed, it
would be impossible to understand
how knights could give up her who
seemed the living embodiment of chiv
alry, how, while the Virgin reigned,
the Virgin should show herself, and be
so cruelly mistaken.

The religion of this epoch was less
the adoration of the Virgin than of
woman; its chivalry was that por
trayed in the Petit Jehan de Saintrd
- but with the advantage of chastity,
in favor of the romance, over the
truth.

Princes set the example. Charles
VII. receives Agnes Sorel as a present
from his wife's mother the old queen
of Sicily ; and mother, wife, and mis
tress, he takes them all with him, as
he marches along the Loire, the hap
piest understanding subsisting between
the three.

The English, more serious, seek love
in marriage only. Gloucester marries
Jacqueline ; among Jacqueline's ladies
his regards fall on one, equally lovely
and witty, and he marries her too.

But, in this respect, as in all others,
France and England are far outstripped
by Flanders, by the Count of Flanders,
by the great Duke of Burgundy. The
legend expressive of the Low Coun
tries, is that of the famous couotess
who brought into the world three
hundred and sixtyfive children. The
princes of the land, without going
quite so far, seem, at the least, to en
deavor to approach her. A count of
Cloves has sixtythree bastards. John
of Burgundy, bishop of Cambrai, offi
ciates pontifically, with his thirtysix
bastards and sons of bastards minis
tering with him at the altar.

Philippe had only sixteen
bastards, but he had no fewer than
twentyseven wives, three lawful ones
and twentyfour mistresses. In these
sad years of 1429 and 1430, and dur
ing the enactment of this tragedy of
the Pucelle's, he was wholly absorbed
in the joyous affair of his third mar*
riage. This time, his wife was an
Infanta of Portugal, English by her
mother's side, her mother having been
Philippa of Lancaster; so that the
English missed their point in giving
him the command of Paris, as detain
him they could jiot ; he was in a hurry
to quit this land of famine, and to
return to Flanders to welcome his
young bride. Ordinances, ceremo
nies, festivals, concluded, or inter
rupted and resumed, consumed whole
months. At Bruges, in particular,
unheardof galas took place, rejoicings
fabulous to tell of, insensate prodigali
ties which ruined the nobility - and
the burgesses eclipsed them. The
seventeen nations which had their
warehouses at Bruges, displayed the
riches of the universe. The streets
were hung with the rich and soft car
pets of Flanders. For eight days and
eight nights the choicest wines ran in
torrents; a stone lion poured forth
Bhenish, a stag, Beanne wine ; and at
mealtimes, a unicorn spouted out rose
water and malvoise.

But the splendor of the Flemish
feast lay in the Flemish women, in the
triumphant beauties of Bruges, such
as Rubens has painted them in his
Magdalen, in his Descent from the
Cross. The Portuguese could not
have delighted in seeing her new sub
jects : already had the Spaniard, Joan
of Navarre, been filled with spite at
the sight, exclaiming, against her will,
" I see only queens here."

On his wedding day (January 10th,
1430), Philippe instituted the
order of the Golden Fleece, " won by
Jason," taking for device the conjugal
and reassuring words, "Autre n^avr
rayj' (No other will I have.)